Revelation 21:1-7
Matthew 23:29-39
“Sanctify
yourself, and you will sanctify society.”
St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis’ observation was – and is – simple. We cannot demand or require from others what
we are unwilling to demand or require of ourselves. Today perhaps more than ever, our society
needs solid examples and role models of faith and service to others. When they do not have that, they can only do
so much with what little they have.
United Methodist elder JD Walt put it
this way, “When we lose sight of the grand
vision, we tend to succumb to the closest thing we can see. Remember when the freed Hebrew slaves wanted
to go back to Egypt? They had lost sight
of the vision. There’s a verse in
Proverbs that says something like, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’.”
(http://dailytext.seedbed.com/2015/10/30)
So we have
visionaries throughout the ages - United
Methodists believe in saints, but not in the same manner as the Catholic
Church.
We recognize and celebrate All Saints' Day (Nov. 1)
and "all the saints who from their labors rest." All Saints'
Day is a time to remember Christians of every time and place, honoring those
who lived faithfully and shared their faith with us.
However, [the United Methodist Church] does not have any
system whereby people are elected to sainthood. We do not pray to saints, nor do we believe
they serve as mediators to God. United Methodists believe "... there
is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus,
himself human who gave himself a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:5-6a).
United Methodists call people "saints" because
they exemplified the Christian life. In
this sense, every Christian can be considered a saint (that is, those who actually exemplified the Christian
life; a significant caveat).
John Wesley believed we have much to learn from the
saints, but he did not encourage anyone to worship them. He expressed concern about the Church of
England's focus on saints' days and said that "most of the holy days were
at present answering no valuable end" (umc.org/what-we-believe).
There are misconceptions about the Roman Catholic
Church’s doctrine regarding sainthood, not least of which is that recognized
saints, including The Blessed Mother, are not in any way “worshiped” (nor is
the pope, for that matter). These
faithful are honored and remembered for “taking the road less traveled”, often at
great personal risk, but they are not worshiped. Do not believe otherwise.
The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican
Churches mark “feast days” devoted to many of the saints, but the purpose is to
remember these saints and
honor the work they are remembered for.
They are not honored for merely being Christians. Those deemed to be “saints” have some
significant event in their lives determined to be “miraculous”. The earliest saints had died martyrs.
I am not going to try and explain the idea of praying
to saints for intercession because, frankly, I don’t understand it myself. Besides, examining the doctrines of the
United Methodist Church require that we focus on what we do believe and
how useful our beliefs are to the witness of the Church. It is not our task to try and find fault with
what we do not understand.
It is written in the Letter to the Hebrews that “we are surrounded by a great cloud of
witnesses” (12:1), but the author was referring to biblical heroes and
the patriarchs of Israel who preceded such “doctors” of the Church as St.
Augustine and St. Francis of Assisi.
These men, and many others (including women), are largely responsible
for the development and refinement of the doctrines and practices of the Church
in general, including many Protestant doctrines. These saints, just like you and I, had their
own struggles as exemplified by St. Augustine who is quoted as once having
said, “O Lord, help me to be pure … but not just yet.”
St. Augustine struggled often with the internal war
you and I face on an almost daily basis, but his plea for purity came before he
finally surrendered fully to The Lord and devoted himself to matters of faith,
making sense of doctrine, and service to the Church. He wanted to have his cake and eat it,
too. He desired holiness, but he also desired
the sensual pleasures and comforts of his own world. The real struggle came, however, as he began
to realize the Holy Scripture is not a “general reference” to be used only as
needed. St. Augustine also discovered that
there are no loopholes! There are no escape clauses, and there are no
short-cuts to sanctification.
The power of the Holy Spirit became inescapable for
these men and women we honor to this day.
And we do not remember them just because some pope declared them
“saints”. They are all very real and
significant parts of the history and witness of the Church through the ages. We remember and honor them for the same
reason the author of the Letter to the
Hebrews lifts up the patriarchs and others who persevered in the Holy Path
when it would have been much easier – and safer - to just join the crowd, be
“popular”, and declare their own holiness or salvation without actually living
it.
Jesus admonished the Pharisees and the scribes because
they were not being realistic in their observations and remembrances of the
past. Even we today cannot imagine
having been eye witnesses to the Mighty Signs and Wonders The Lord performed in
Egypt, and then being anything less than faithful to The Lord. Yet as we should learn from the wilderness
journey, it only takes a generation or two, however, to forget. It takes no
effort to make these heroes of the faith to be nothing more than fond
memories in a book.
That is, we may remember the names and we may even
remember the period in which they lived.
We are not likely, however, to take serious note of the obstacles they
confronted and the real dangers they faced … even from those who considered
themselves as faithful as they felt they needed to be – on their own terms! These were dangerous people then – and are no
less dangerous now. So being chastised
by someone – anyone – especially an “outsider” did not sit well then – and does
not sit well now.
Even today we do not take seriously what the prophets
endured in confronting the people of The Lord and calling them to repentance before
it was too late. Prophets of all stripes
do this very thing even today, coming from unlikely sources and even from our
Sunday pulpits, and we do not take them seriously enough to hear the Word and
then “go and do likewise”. If we do not
like what we hear, we either reject it outright OR we simply stop coming to
listen. And if we think Jesus is not
referring to us in this
admonition of the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees, we are not looking
closely enough at our own lives or the lives of those around us.
“I send (not ‘sent’) you
prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify (if
only their spirit in your slander), and some you will flog in your synagogues
(read ‘churches’) and pursue from town to town …” (Mt 23:34). Unless, of course, that ‘prophet’ is Joel
Osteen or some other celebrity ‘pop culture’ preacher who “misleads My people”
[says The Lord] by preaching “peace when there is no peace” or by
trying to “whitewash a wall” that will soon fall (Ezekiel 13:10). We will
follow them to the ends of the earth – as long as they tell us what we wish to
hear, as long as they satisfy our “itching ears” (2 Timothy 4:3) but refuse to call us to sanctification.
Sometimes the prophets and saints of the past are
difficult to read and appreciate because we cannot place ourselves in a culture
which no longer exists. We are certain,
as the scribes and Pharisees were in Jesus’ day, that we would not “kill” a
prophet or participate in the “mob” desecration of the human soul, but the
truth is we do exactly that when we fail to stand up for what is truly
righteous.
More than bringing a curse upon ourselves, however, is
the reality that The Lord chastises only those whom He loves (Hebrews 12:6). When we refuse to hear – and then actively
respond – to a “hard word”, we decline a genuine blessing being offered to help
put us back on the Righteous and Holy Path.
We’re still on a Journey – and will be until the Final
Trumpet sounds – so we must not allow ourselves to fall for the “snake oil”
that poses as salve for the soul. We can
easily see our world “going to hell in a hand basket”, yet we often reject the
Holy Word that is calling us apart
from that destructive path to perdition.
The Hard Word is not always pleasant to the senses,
but it is always edifying and sanctifying to the immortal soul. We celebrate
and honor the saints who stood firm in The Eternal Word and, like Jesus
Himself, “gave us an example, that we should do the same” (John 13:15). And let us always remember that these saints were not known or
referred to among their peers as “good ol’ boys” or “fine Christian women”.
So let us resolve that we will no longer go about our
“business as usual”. The Ministry of all Christians requires
that we take more seriously the “cloud of witnesses” and the mission to which
we are called as baptized Christians so we may become, for generations to follow,
that same “cloud of witnesses” who persevered in righteousness and faith – not
popularity. There are “Saints among us”
today. Let us be counted in their
company.
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